Halfway through the Race for the Chase, things continue to heat up as the field heads to Watkins Glen. It seems this year's Chase field will come down to a battle amongst teammates. The RCR drivers aren't the only ones fighting for the same territory, Roush Fenway Racing's Matt Kenseth and David Ragan are pitched in their own race for position.

Ragan - who has quietly put himself in contention - is currently fourteenth in the series standings and is only forty-six points behind Clint Bowyer in twelfth-place. The driver of the No. 6 AAA Ford Fusion has had three top-tens in the last four races, but has not had the best runs on the road courses. Ragan finished 32nd at last year's race at the Gen and was 24th at Infineon earlier in the year. The question will be can one of this year's most improved drivers perform on a track he's had trouble on in the past.

"I can't say road courses are my favorite places," Ragan admitted, "but I'm beginning to become more comfortable at them. I went up to Watkins Glen last week and made a few laps around the track just to familiarize myself with it. Plus this weekend the Nationwide and Cup cars are together so that will give me lots of track time to get used to the track. It's crunch time for the Chase so we need to hang in there and get a solid run on Sunday."

After a terrible trip to Indianapolis and an eleventh-place finish at Pocono last week, Kenseth fell two more spots in the standings to thirteenth-spot. Only eleven points behind Bowyer, the 2003 champion has had four top-tens in eight tries at Watkins Glen.

"Despite the last two weeks, I'm still optimistic," the driver of the No. 17 DeWalt Ford Fusion pointed out. "Our car was really fast at Indy and we qualified really well. We had another fast car last week at Pocono and were able to run in the top 10 for most of the day. Our stuff has been fast, so I'm confident we have the equipment to compete in this stretch leading into the Chase. But as we've seen in several races this year, it isn't always about the fastest car - it's a lot of strategy and luck. Hopefully we'll have some good luck over the next several weeks and lock ourselves into the Chase."

The man everyone has their eyes on is Richard Childress Racing's Clint Bowyer. A sixth-place finish at Pocono was enough to hold on to the twelfth-spot in the Race to the Chase. Bowyer needs to find the consistency he enjoyed earlier in the year. He finished fourth at Infineon earlier this year, but has a fourteenth and a sixteenth in his tries at the Glen. For a driver with everything to lose, Bowyer needs to back up his finish at Sonoma and hope for a better result this weekend at Watkins Glen.

Bowyer's teammate Kevin Harvick was able to jump two spots and back into the top-12 after a fourth-place finish in Pocono. Although he is only eight points ahead of Bowyer, and realistically only fifty-four points behind Ragan in fourteenth. Harvick is a skillful road racer and was the winner at Watkins Glen in 2006, although last year's event did not go as smooth. An incident with Juan Pablo Montoya brought out the old Harvick and left him with a thirty-sixth place finish. Also this year in Sonoma, Harvick went a bit too hard a bit too early in the final stages of the race collecting among others Tony Stewart.

As the Race to the Chase makes its way to the next five tracks things are sure to heat up. This weekend's race at Watkins Glen will test the drivers, then it's off to Michigan where the manufacturers will show their stuff and then they go night racing at Bristol, the Auto Club Speedway and the night it all matters in Richmond. Throw in Silly Season and this is something you're definitely not going to want to miss.